Keep Up To Date: At the end of a post, tick the box "Notify me of follow-up comments via email" to keep informed of who says what on a particular item.
This supplement has been written as part of the post-apocalyptic survivor horror RPG: Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur. It expands upon the concept of the Cthulhu Mythos, introducing a raft of new Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and non-human species for characters to encounter.
If you’re more into narrative than rule systems, you can enjoy new flavours of the Cthulhu Mythos in the novels, EDGE, Dog Eat Dog and The Black Lake.
Click to download the free PDF
.
. .
Available from LULU
YELLOW DAWN – THE AGE OF HASTUR: The Earth has been ravaged by viral pathogens, the death of billions observed by the orbital colonies and deep-space habitats that were largely unaffected by the Outbreak. Terrified of infection, nobody came to help. Less than 30 percent survived the first few weeks. Then came the 2nd Wave of infection, spreading steadily outwards from the impact points, and that was when the horror really began…
This book is crammed with everything you will need to create characters, run scenarios and experience horror and adventure in the fictional world of David J Rodger.
FEATURES: Narrative examples of key themes • The Influence of Hastur • Medical theories on the Infection • Zombie surges • Dead Cities • Wilderness survival • Comprehensive scavenging system and how to repair or build things with resources • Backgrounds and motivations of government bodies and corporations • Computer hacking and drug abuse • High-tech immortality options • Non-human characters • Enhancements through cyberware and bioware • Weaponry, equipment and armour • Complete character generation and development system • Complex political, corporate and quasi-religious tensions • Schools of Elemental Magick, occultism, demonology, and the alien horrors of the Outer Chaos – the Cthulhu Mythos. Purchase via LULU.
Some time ago I posted a very rough and ready piece on my blog called Reasons to Like Lovecraft: Yog-Sothoth. It contained a couple of images and embedded YouTube links to the Dunwich Horror audio book. There was very little explanatory notes about how I perceived Yog-Sothoth from a fiction writing point-of-view (something I’d like to address later this year when I find time to step away from current writing commitments). One of the images was by an Australian artist by the moniker of Drhoz.
The Lurker At The Threshold – Yog-Sothoth by Drhoz
In my mind, the image encapsulates everything about the menacing, frothing-madness and cosmic horror of this Outer God as it comes streaming through a rent in our reality. The overlap of a ring of monoliths in a dark, isolated location, where obscene rites are performed, with the rancid, expanding stream of alien influence; conveys the inevitable, unstoppable reign of these monstrous things. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be.
And yet… the boundaries of theQuantisphere, however fragile, has managed to enable this “oasis” of existence for the human condition called awareness.
So with great pleasure, I hand over to the artist behind the image.
DJR: Hello Drhoz. Thanks for taking time out to pen some words here. First question up is around your inspiration for the image. Are you a fan of H.P.Lovecraft and the body of work that is the Cthulhu Mythos or is it just that you find the particular concept around Yog-Sothoth of interest?
Definitely a fan, ever since I read ‘Colour Out of Space’ when I was in my young teens. Although as it happens I’d read Bloch’s ‘Notebook Found In An Abandoned House’ and Derleth’s ‘The Shuttered Room’ before that. The former is a brilliant piece of work – the later – not so much. As for the picture of Yog-Sothoth – I loved the description – even if the first use I saw of it was in another Derleth piece.
So I got together a bunch of photos of marbles and crystal balls, particle tracks from a collider, and the stone circle, to frame the seething quantum foam of Yog-Sothoth. Then used a few contrast-adjusting tricks to give it the tone I used in this a few related Lovecraftian pieces :)
.
Temple of Starry Wisdom by Drhoz
.
The_Inhabitant_of_the_Lake_by_Drhoz
.
The_Colour_Out_of_Space_by_Drhoz
.
Three_lobed_Burning_Eye_by_Drhoz
.
Render_of_the_Veils_by_Drhoz
.
Statement_of_Randolph_Carter_by_Drhoz
.
The_Temple_of_Nug_and_Yeb_by_Drhoz
and a few where I played with Apophysis and LunarCell to make more abstract works; for example:
Mad_Aurora_by_Drhoz
.
DJR: Linking into the above. What theme captures your artistic temperament and sees most creative output? What truly inspires you and gives you a tingle of delight to craft within? And conversely, what makes you want to pull your hair out. What concepts are your biggest challenge?
Well, going back over these pieces on a monitor that isn’t on it’s last legs certainly makes me pull my hair out – it shows up all the errors and obvious cuts that were too subtle to see on a cathode ray monitor that old :)
As to inspiration – I do draw, or write, a lot of rather dark stuff. Possibly because of the satisfaction of drawing really ghastly things when I’m generally a pleasant person :)
The Mythos is a favorite, and generating portraits or props such as this photo of a thing the Cthulhu players found under Boston also keeps me happily busy.
.
broodling_in_a_bottle_by_drhoz-d3cvgmt
.
The Call of Cthulhu RPG, Deathwatch and Rogue Trader, and a Bronze-age middle east themed AD&D campaign also gave me lots of inspiration, too.
That said, I might spend the better part of a week tearing my hair out about one picture, give up, then go back to it months later and decide that actually, this was pretty good.
Oh, and I’m terrible at drawing feet. Witness one piece where I finally satisfied with the rather complex pose and POV, and only then realised I’d given the character two left feet. *headdesk*
.
DJR: Are you all about Digital Art or do you hold other skills? If you were to define yourself, as an artist – what do you say?
Actually, nearly everything I’ve done is with pencil and pen. For example – this character portrait for a Rogue Trader game -
.
navigator_netzach_benetek_by_drhoz
.
I’m way behind in drawing though – at the moment a lot of my creative effort is pushed towards making fake 1920s news items and similar props for the Call of Cthulhu campaign I run here in Perth.
.
DJR: Do you see the Cthulhu Mythos seeping further into mainstream awareness through cinema and fiction? Do you think this would be a good thing or a bad thing? A validation of Lovecraft’s work after nearly a century of relegation to a “freakish” sub-genre – or an erosion of deliciously obscure niche that the Mythos sits within?
I’m very much in favour, but admit it’s difficult to sell an audience on indescribable horror and utter nihilism. I’d like to think the old gentleman would have been delighted with Plush Cthulhus though – he was a fan at heart himself, and his letters are frequently very funny.
.
DJR: What’s your favourite piece of personal work and your favourite source of inspiration (artist or otherwise)? (Provide example copy if you like).
Well, I get inspiration from all over – anything might trigger a good idea. Even if that idea is horrible beyond words – My Little Pony / Mythos crossover for example *insert insane laughter here, cue psychiatric orderlies*
but I’m still very pleased with with a portrait I did of another unspeakable character I invented – Eidolon. A complete monster.
.
Eidolon_2_by_Drhoz
.
DJR: What’s coming up in your world that you’d like to shout about? Any links, events, promos you would like to share with the folks who look at this blog every month?
Well… the Call of Cthulhu and other games I mentioned above are being turned into Actual Play podcasts, and the journals, fake newspaper articles, and props andportraits for them continue to turn up online at various forums. Anybody interested in seeing them is welcome to email me and I’ll point them in the right directions. I was appalled to notice that the journal for the Cthulhu campaign is already 120 pages long.
June saw a battle for top spot between my hand-picked collection of short stories – Songs of Spheres, and the post-apocalyptic crime thriller, Dog Eat Dog, which is the first novel to be set within the world of Yellow Dawn (Mad Max meets Blade Runner; Earth ravaged by the Cthulhu Mythos).
Dog Eat Dog won out in the end with a combination of paperback sales through LULU and Kindle versions through Amazon.
.
.
.
.
.
Other News
I finished a new novel earlier this week. The Black Lake. Now going through proofing and review. So far, great feedback… it’s a fast read with the tension building up nicely. I’m aiming to release it before September 2012.
I’m now working on the next novel. Rise of the Iconoclast. Another one to be set in the world of Yellow Dawn. A rip-roaring romp of post-apocalyptic cyborgs, holding together as a bandit crew and heroes for hire. Very different to what I normally write. But I like the challenge. I’ve got my crew defined and relevant bits fleshed out – so watch this space for updates as the story evolves.
CREW OF THE GINNY – aka Genie
Izaäk Raske
Hariwald Hlavač
Tristão Steinsson
Malthe Herriot
Nikias Solberg
.
Dog Eat Dog takes place in the near future, after the Earth has been devastated by a viral pathogen unleashed when a corporate cargo hauler crashed into the atmosphere; breaking up as a fireball across the sky, it showered Southern Europe and North Africa with a deadly rain of infected debris. Ten years later, over seventy percent of the human population is dead and only a handful of cities survive intact. So called ‘Living Cities’. The vast majority of human habitation is abandoned to the undying creatures left mutated through a brutal twist in the infection. Greed and corruption are left hovering over this bleak and brutalized domain and a cosmic horror is now free to infiltrate the remote abandoned corners of the Earth. Above this, the orbital colonies spin within artificial gravity wells, impartial observers, unaffected by the shocking events below. Within this mix the lives of two survivors collide: a renegade intelligence agent and a cold-blooded master of violence, shaping events with their virulent hunger for money and desire to carve their name onto this new world.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in one my favourite haunts, the Grain Barge, floating on the edge of Bristol’s stunning inland harbour; supping a pint of malty Milk Stout, I was making a final review of the freshly launched new edition of the primary rulebook for Yellow Dawn. Version 2.5. The sun had set with a blazing show of colour and it was now night, the waters of the harbour black and reflecting the full moon above like an undulating mass of curved glass.
I was working with Nice Guy Tony, a bloke whose been involved in my RPG-creation-exploits since I first started developing something called Game back in 1996. 11 years later “Game” became “Yellow Dawn” after a recent addition to the crew, Hagen (now called GBH), came in and broke Game – leaving me staring at a bunch of disparate systems that had grown up organically without any consistenst structure.
Having Nice Guy’s opinion on the new edition was vital for me: I needed a thumbs-up to push away the niggling fear that comes with delivering a product to market. He spent three hours flicking to every section he didn’t recognise: there’s been a significant amount of new material added to this version.
The response was very positive.
He then went on to talk about what he feels really makes Yellow Dawn unique from other role-playing games he’s dealt with.
It set off a spark in my skull that made me realise that this was what I’ve been told by many others.
It might sound strange to you that I hadn’t considered these myself, but it’s often the case that when you’re so close to the woods – you just can’t see the trees.
I’ve always run games with the character rather than the player in mind.
That might sound obvious, but when you’re sitting in a physical location with a bunch of people, some of whom are stronger in personality, communication skills and alpha-aggression than other, more timid, thoughtful and socially challenged players, you can easily lose sight of the characters, who are invisible constructs existing within a fictional world setting – all operating on the stage of the imagination.
In other words, big blokes and mouthy woman can dominate a game (or big women and mouthy blokes), leaving smaller and quieter people in the background – even though their characters – the fictional people they’ve created to represent them in this imagined universe might be world-ranking negotiators or capable of intimidating Charles Bronson with the flex of a brow and steely gaze.
Physical reality can override the consensual hallucination of the storytelling.
I prefer to bring the imagined, phantasmal-reality to the forefront of every player’s mind. And I believe I’ve created an RPG that gives any GM the tools to do this too, if, and only if, the GM has the desire to do so.
There’s also the situation where a player will invest a lot of points in interesting skills during character creation – but they almost become wasted because most scenarios rarely require employ these skills.
So I strive to bring interesting skills into the heart of the game system – not just fluttering in the whimsical breeze of scenario writers.
And I think I’ve achieved this.
Here are the USPs of Yellow Dawn – according to the voice of others:
First Contact
MADS
Integrated scavenging and utilisation of resources to sell, build or repair.
NPCs given autonomy from GMs personal whims.
Virtual Contacts
Media interest
First Contact
First Contact is based on natural INTELLIGENCE, APPEARANCE and POWER (Charisma), where interpersonal communication and “likeability” allow characters to leverage influence with the NPCs they meet. Characters can be pro-active, knowing they’re about to meet somebody important and use every gram of flair and charm (if they have any); or, characters can rely on a retrospective roll, if they think “damn that was a really cool person to get to know”.
MADS
Every character has a COOL score that can be eroded through encountering the horrors that lurk within the world of Yellow Dawn – not just the Cthulhu Mythos but also the dark elementals and demonic forms of the Quantisphere. This erosion of COOL is caused by Anxiety. However the latest edition of YD allows you to enhance Anxiety checks with “filters” based on Morality, Stress and Depression, giving characters far more granularity.
Integrated scavenging and utilisation of resources to sell, build or repair.
There is a comprehensive system for extracting resources, raw and specialised components from buildings and other items. These can then be sold for profit or used to build and repair other things – allowing characters to utilise skills they would normally rarely use within game. Survival is an every day experience. Using your abilities to achieve this is key.
NPCs given autonomy from GMs personal whims
Quick systems like NPC motivation and NPC Potential give the GM a structure to run NPCs outside of their normal thinking patterns. It disengages an NPC from the core personality of a GM, keeping players on their toes – because they can no longer predict how all NPCs will behave.
Virtual Contacts
If a character can create interesting articles (Composition), take photos or videos of experiences, perform research and document their findings – and if they can find a way of uploading this material to the Internet, then they might find they become the focus of high-tech people who take an interest in stories “from the wilderness” or orbital and deep space folk with a passion for all things Earth since Yellow Dawn took place. Conversely, if the characters ever blog about an issue or put out a call for help; there’s a chance that this invisible, anonymous group of watchers may be able to step in and do something.
Media Interest
Whether the characters want it or not – their activities can draw the attention of the media, from small rag-tag wannabe journalist in a survivor settlement bashing out printed copies of a newsletter with a home-made Guttenberg press, through to global media corporations with satellite surveillance and powerful on-screen personalities expressing their views on what the characters may (or may not have) done… and so shaping the opinion of people the characters get to meet. Savvy characters will exploit this to generate an income stream or gain access to influential contacts; other characters do everything they can to remain below the radar.
.
There’s some of the key USPs of Yellow Dawn.
Take a peek at the official webpage or preview the first few pages of the rulebook viaLULU.
If you want to know (and play the campaign to uncover the truth) what caused the event known as Yellow Dawn to happen, you should purchase the massive globe-spanning campaign Shadows of the Quantinex.
And if you really want to get the teeth of your brain to mesh with the vast imagined universe of Yellow Dawn – take a look at the novel Dog Eat Dog, available in paperback or Amazon Kindle US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro) .
WiP: it’s the weekend. huzzah. Got wonderful fire-glow of dawn sun burning through the mist hanging around the house right now: emerging view of nearby hills, fields and below me the urban sprawl of Bristol. Going to be nailing a few (hopefully) quick little articles and bolt-on rules for Yellow Dawn. Later: the walk around harbourside me and lost inside my own mind fleshing out the next three novels.
WiP: working on a special release hardback edition of YD rulebook. Had the first proof through from LULU. Looks bloody good but I felt the back cover needed some more work. The cover is heavily blacked out and is intended for people who know and love the world of Yellow Dawn. So I’ve refined the design and requested another proof from LULU. Should be with me in a few days and then I can make a call on whether to launch it or not.
This is one of the most engaging stories I’ve read in a long while that I couldn’t predict what was coming next. Intricately woven together and so deftly pulled apart by the shocking end as the story is unfolded. Dog Eat Dog is unlike anything I have read before and does an amazing job of immersing you into the dichotomy of the universe. The reader is pulled into two worlds: one of the technologically driven and seemingly untouchable powers that can afford to not get their hands dirty, and the other the grimy and terrifying existence of reality outside the safety of walled cities. The atmosphere of this story sticks with you long after you’ve put it down, the world is fully fleshed out and tangible and the characters even more so. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoy fast-paced action, intelligent intrigue, and relentless in-your-face storytelling.
DOG EAT DOG { novel } takes place in the near future, after the Earth has been devastated by a viral pathogen unleashed when a corporate cargo hauler crashed into the atmosphere; breaking up as a fireball across the sky, it showered Southern Europe and North Africa with a deadly rain of infected debris. Ten years later, over seventy percent of the human population is dead and only a handful of cities survive intact. So called ‘Living Cities’. The vast majority of human habitation is abandoned to the undying creatures left mutated through a brutal twist in the infection. Greed and corruption are left hovering over this bleak and brutalized domain and a cosmic horror is now free to infiltrate the remote abandoned corners of the Earth. Above this, the orbital colonies spin within artificial gravity wells, impartial observers, unaffected by the shocking events below. Within this mix the lives of two survivors collide: a renegade intelligence agent and a cold-blooded master of violence, shaping events with their virulent hunger for money and desire to carve their name onto this new world.
It’s been a pretty awesome weekend. Enough mist and eerie weather to keep me happy and enough sunshine to put a smile on my face. In the background to walking 12 miles I’ve completed a compilation of short stories called Songs of Spheres, 15 hand-picked favourites of mine. And, rather excitingly, I’ve also put together a special edition hardback version of Yellow Dawn 2.5. Just waiting for proof copies to arrive from LULU before I officially launch. Still no time to do any formal PR or marketing for YD2.5 or the recent novel launch (Living in Flames), too mad busy fleshing out the avalanche of new ideas. All good though. Watch this space. Djr
I’m making great progress and having a lot of fun with the new murder mystery game: Mayhem at the Manor. It’s an idea I had last Sunday at Hayling Island, supping a dawn mug of coffee and gazing at the sea.
Also fleshing out bullet point plot point of Camaraderie of Wolves, the next plannedYellow Dawn novel; and mapping chapters for the next novel I’m actually going to be writing – called Oakfield, it’ll be a tale of Mythos terror set in Cornwall and is a prequel to my first novel God Seed. And, as of Monday – I’ve been struggling to cope as I’ve now got another bloody novel idea brewing, this one called Proteus Syndrome… and will feature one of my favourite characters Jean-Luc Korda and ties into the 3rd published novelIron Man Project.
So lots going on inside the old cranium but I’m glad for the ideas and so taking time out from what I should be doing to get them down. What I should be doing is promoting the launch of the new version of Yellow Dawn (2.5) and the launch of the new novel, Living in Flames; in fact I’ve done barely any marketing because I’ve been so busy with this storm of ideas. Actually I’d appreciate a little help here. If you can spare 30 seconds, and would like to help, could you blog, tweet, stumble, digg or just plain-old tell your friends about either Yellow Dawn or Living in Flames? Here’s the links to promote if you can:
Mayhem at the Manor – a new murder mystery game. So I’m indulging my pleasure rather than continuing with the grind of building a wave of PR for last month’s release of Yellow Dawn 2.5 and the new novel Living in Flames. Tedious, necessary… but right now, I want to have some creative fun. So Mayhem at the Manor is this morning’s treat. More generally I’m finishing off Songs of Spheres (short story collection); fleshing out new YD novel idea called camaraderie of Wolves; and prepping for the next novel I’m planning to start writing soon, called Oakfield – a prelude to God Seed.
This supplement has been written as part of the RPG Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur. It expands upon the concept of the Cthulhu Mythos, introducing a raft of new Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and non-human species for characters to encounter. This is a living document, in the sense it will grow as I expand the notes and backgrounds over time.
Click to download the free PDF
.
. .
Available from LULU
YELLOW DAWN – THE AGE OF HASTUR: The Earth has been ravaged by viral pathogens, the death of billions observed by the orbital colonies and deep-space habitats that were largely unaffected by the Outbreak. Terrified of infection, nobody came to help. Less than 30 percent survived the first few weeks. Then came the 2nd Wave of infection, spreading steadily outwards from the impact points, and that was when the horror really began…
This book is crammed with everything you will need to create characters, run scenarios and experience horror and adventure in the fictional world of David J Rodger.
FEATURES: Narrative examples of key themes • The Influence of Hastur • Medical theories on the Infection • Zombie surges • Dead Cities • Wilderness survival • Comprehensive scavenging system and how to repair or build things with resources • Backgrounds and motivations of government bodies and corporations • Computer hacking and drug abuse • High-tech immortality options • Non-human characters • Enhancements through cyberware and bioware • Weaponry, equipment and armour • Complete character generation and development system • Complex political, corporate and quasi-religious tensions • Schools of Elemental Magick, occultism, demonology, and the alien horrors of the Outer Chaos – the Cthulhu Mythos. Purchase via LULU.
If you’re a fan of H.P.Lovecraft you may recognise and hopefully enjoy seeing this. If you’re unaware of H.P.Lovecraft, then peel the rime off your eyeballs and get into this world of ultimate, sanity-blasting cosmic horror…
Nyarlathotep in human form - image by Gregory Manchess - All Rights Reserved. Click for full size
Image: Used to illustrate Nyarlathotep in human form: Nephren Ka – The Black Pharaoh. Image by Gregory Manchess – All Rights Reserved. Read artist’s blog here.
Nyarlathotep.
A name that can conjure a masochistic smile of gleeful horror on the lips of many – a part of the charm of the human aspect of this monstrous shape-shifting denizen; and a word that injects ice cold dread and paralysing terror into the veins of mortal men tainted with the knowledge of what this Thing truly is.
It wields the promise of knowledge that when revealed does nothing but cause fear, terror and apprehension.
.
It’s a creation of H.P.Lovecraft that has grown beyond all proportions of its original multifarious definitions. Part of the pantheon of brutally alien, cosmic entities known as the Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep has been classed an Outer God.
Also called the Crawling Chaos, it is the Messenger, Deputy and Factotum of the Outer Gods – a thing with a thousand masks.
And as such it has developed many formsto penetrate the minds of men – and monsters – that worship it or succumb to the beguiling charm and barbed “gifts” of wild powers and technology it likes to hand out.
These formshave been given names from across all realms of space and time – and far beyond the protective membrane of the Quantisphere in the spiralling vortices of the Outer Chaos.
Black Man; Black Pharaoh; Black Wind; Bloated Woman; Dweller in Darkness; The Haunter of the Dark; Howler in the Dark are but a few of the names ascribed to these forms; a few of them humanoid in appearance, as there is a relatively rich awareness of Nyarlathotep in human cults, compared to the rest of the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, due to its success in weaving itself into the easily corruptible nature of Mankind. And its ability to reach into our Universe and operate within our reality – in human guise – without the need for costly Rendering ceremonies to puncture the Quantisphere When the Stars Are Right and so Call It Through… from Beyond.
There is a pseudo-sexual aspect to the sardonic attraction Nyarlathotep’s human followers experience – and many are drawn into every form of sexual practice and “perversion”, incidentally fulfilling Nyarlathotep’s commitment to another Outer God: Shub-Niggurath.
This medley of names and profusion of different forms has allowed Nyarlathotep to sink its proverbial fangs deep into the flesh of the body of human existence – throughout Time - ever since it first encountered the agile minds of the “men” that staggered free of the prehistoric flesh pits of the Elder Things – the erect walking creatures bred from the stock of the Great Magi and then mutated by the Hokan (shadow people) - the ancestors of the Homo sapiens that eventually came to dominate so much of the Earth.
As a messenger and factotum of the Outer Gods within the restricted dimensional construct of the Quantisphere , Nyarlathotep is profoundly successful and adroit because it has mastered the not-so-easy task of relating directly to these… skin-wrapped creatures with minds and soul-energy, these humans with so many complex interests, desires, yearnings and weaknesses.
Nyarlathotep - click for full size
Image: Used to illustrate Nyarlathotep in monstrous form: SOTA Nightmares Resin Statue Nyarlathotep (Black Variant). View product details here.
.
Worship of Nyarlathotep – especially in its humanoid forms – can often give followers a potently intimate and private realization of personal importance. Much more so than the vastly inflated glee and ego-maniacal glory that comes from rendering a Great Old One or Outer God- such experiences typically being oblique, monstrous and sometimes dangerous to the point of lunacy. It’s as if the meaningful communication from Nyarlathotep, such an immense and powerful entity, which has taken a form that almost panders to the human desire to see something that can be related to, creates a sense of acceptance on the deepest psychological level: a godis willing and even enthusiastic about dealing with (me).
However, this is just Nyarlathotep doing what Nyarlathotep does best: charming , beguiling, intriguing, enigmatic and seductive (regardless of sexual orientation) when it wants to be. Leading to manipulations that can be so subtle and covering so much time, that they’re barely perceivable until the denouement; or resulting in swift and brutal twists, dramatic mind-games that bring about a rapid reveal of the Outer God’s ultimate aim. Not death. Not destruction (in the first instance) but despair, anxiety, and madness. Nyarlathotep actually enjoys – in fact revels – in the art of weaving traps that allow a person to bring about their own end, physically or psychologically (through maiming, death or insanity).
Perhaps that’s why it’s a favourite amongst GMs!
The followers of Nyarlathotep ultimately succumb to a sort of mass-neurosis, beginning with a collective state of total brotherhood that binds them obediently and without question to a particular purpose; unlike cultists of Lloigor, for example, who often fight amongst themselves and take actions not in the best interests of the creatures they serve. This state of brotherhood leads sooner, or sometimes much much later to a total inability to perceive the world around them as it really is. They hunker down in squalid places. They claw their eyes out to escape the terrible visions overlaying their perceptions. Or step away from the shattered remains of their sanity – no longer participants of the human race – and find themselves a place to exist, as they are; or are locked away in asylums, or killed by nervous authorities… with the baying, howling, mocking laughter of Nyarlathotep echoing through the endless darkness.
These are just examples, not definitive statements.
Timescales are fluid. Groups of sorcerers have had their lives extended many generations only to discover a grinning madness awaits them rather than some lofty pedestal of power and glory.
And sometimes, rarely, Nyarlathotep uses immediate and overwhelming violence to annihilate an individual or entire group.
The provision of unusual and life-altering technology is a favourite ploy of Nyarlathotep’s human guises. To the point where the inventor Nikola Tesla, with his extraordinary experiments with electrical apparatus and incredible demonstrations, led some Mythos academics to mistakenly suspected him of being such an avatar.
.
The kind of “steampunk” technologies as used by the Mi-Go (Fungi from Yuggoth) – who devoutly worship Nyarlathotep – have been handed over to humans as candy / bait towards the process of creating wonder and enslavement: many recipients of such “gifts” find themselves arrested for murder – as they experiment with obscure weapons or the brain-extraction techniques; or wind-up victims of the very technology they’ve been given… a nocturnal visit from a swarm of Mi-Go sent to take back what has, in truth, only been loaned to the foolish human.
Nyarlathotep is responsible for giving to men and woman the machines made of brass components, glass valves, crystal lenses and a crude “Victorian” electricity – that generate frequencies capable of homing in on Demonic entities and ensnaring them, to drag them into a chamber (bathysphere) to torture with piercing energies, with the aim of forcing the demons into service. Usually with disastrous consequences for those foolish enough to dabble in the Dark Arts and beings that belong to the furthermost edges of the Quantisphere.
However, above this plethora of mockery and diabolical amusement, Nyarlathotep remains bound to serve those for whom it is messenger – the Outer Gods Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath and the dominant yet blind and idiot force that is the Daemon Sultan: Azathoth.
Nyarlathotep Diabolus Rex
Nyarlathotep is sometimes mistaken for Satan and the Devil. This is especially so during the highly active period of witch covens in England; but there is a cosmos of difference between the Outer God and the comparatively limited powers of “Evil” occult entities associated with Satanism and demonology.
I was first exposed to the full majesty of this manipulative Outer God in the jaw-droppingly good campaign for the RPG Call of Cthulhu, called Masks of Nyarlathotep. It was spring 1986 and it was love at first sight.
Nyarlathotep - Cult of the Bloody Tongue
In this epic story, Nyarlathotep has several disparate forms: the three-legged creature worshipped by the Cult of the Bloody Tongue, the Black Wind; the sardonic Black Pharoah; and the seemingly innocuous Chinese girl with a fan that conceals the monstrous figure of the Bloated Woman. The story demonstrates all of these different forms working together – there is one entity, a single malign intelligence behind the masks.
Nyarlathotep is conscious of all events across all times and all places – but it cannot control the future in any particular time-stream. It can only attempt to shape it.
Also, Nyarlathotep is not omnipresent; it cannot act simultaneously in more than one place (and time).
Was Hastur the uncontrollable creation of Nyarlathotep?
It has been suggested by some scholars of the dreaded Necronomicon, the book of maddening insights compiled by Abdul Alhazred, that Hasturis a construct of the Outer God: Nyarlathotep. In an act of malignant mockery, it created this thing that would entice, engage and drive men (and women) mad. As Hastur encountered Humankind, it was able to ‘latch onto’ the fabric of space-time, feeding, warping and growing beyond all control. Such a view would be considered appalling by agents of the Yellow Sign – a particularly loathsome set of worshippers of Hastur – who detest certain forms of Nyarlathotep and the crustaceous-insectoid devotees known as Mi-Go.
The legacy of Robert Bloch
No discussion of Nyarlathotep is complete without mentioning Robert Bloch, best known for writing the novel Psycho, later used by Alfred Hitchcock in the film of the same name. Bloch is also the author quoted as bridging the gap between H.P Lovecraft and Stephen King. Bloch’s early writing career was heavily influenced by H.P.Lovecraft, indeed the two men corresponded with each other before HPL’s early demise in March 1937. One of Lovecraft’s best short stories (in my view) – the Haunter of the Dark, which features an aspect of Nyarlathotep, was dedicated to Bloch; the central character Robert Blake was a thinly disguised version of Bloch. So think about that next time you watch Hitchcock’s Psycho – that Norman Bates may have had more going on than sexual jealousy of his mother taking a lover; there may have been a book of forbidden lore and the subtle yet malign influence of a Great Old One somewhere in the mix. I’m being flippant but it’s an intriguing possibility.
Nyarlathotep in the Sci-Fi Cyberpunk Dark Fantasy fiction of David J Rodger
I’ve used the Outer God in a couple bits of work. In the novel God Seed, Nyarlathotep’s human form is walking the near-future world in the guise of billionaire businessman Rahmun Sada – racing towards an endgame that intends to see the humans who worship it bring about the end of all life in the universe. This human form returns, nearly two decades later, and after the dust has settled on the apocalyptic event known as Yellow Dawn (where agents of Hastur deliver a hellish blow against humanity)- to appear in the vast RPG investigation campaign – Shadows of the Quantinex.
I’m also in the process of planning a new novel – called Oakfield – which will be a prequel to God Seed and will see Nyarlathotep appear as Rahmun Sada again, along with a group of Mi-go camped out in the hills of a remote village in Cornwall, England – terrorising a family who’ve come to take ownership of house there.
WiP: Yellow Dawn – working on the next free download – Monsters of the Mythos, a collection of new Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and non-human species for GMs to terrorise characters with. Living in Flames (new novel), now on the last chapter of proofing. Living in Flames is about what happens when a bunch of low-end criminals in Bristol find a carved wooden figurine on a dead guy outside of a nightclub; stealing it, thinking it’ll be worth something, they have no idea it’s a sacred idol that belongs to a Mythos cult – and the cult want it back. Drug dealers meet Mythos monsters. Great fun. With any luck I’ll be able to launch it next month.
Available in paperback from LULU or Kindle from Amazon
With five novels out there, plus the RPG Yellow Dawn, a fistful of short stories and the murder mystery - “Murder At Sharky Point – it’s interesting to watch the trends in what people buy and see which comes out on top every month.
January saw a battle for top spot between the dark cyberpunk thriller Dante’s Fool and the most recent release, the post-apocalyptic political crime novel, Dog Eat Dog.
Dante’s Fool won out in the end with a combination of paperback sales through LULU and Kindle versions through Amazon. As a little celebration I’m knocking 30% off the paperback price for this week: buy this before 3rd Feb, using LULU’s extra discount code SHADOWHOG and you can score a further 20% off – creating a total saving of 50%.
Dante’s Fool: London, the near future, a courier who’s just descended from orbit is intercepted by armed-robbers on a busy motorway. The robbers get away with the package but it’s not what they expected and leads to an enigmatic deep-space mining corporation hunting them down, with brutal consequences. Also tracking them down is a hard-nosed Detective Sergeant from the Metropolitan Serious Crimes Division. What happens next is a journey through a personal Hell, as the Detective discovers there are forces out there that will do anything to see him fail, and entities that exist beyond the ordinary planes of mundane reality.
Hunting down H.P.Lovecraft – outside 169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York, location of the Horror at Red Hook
David J Rodger outside 169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York
Not a particularly fantastic photo in its own right, but the context of where it was taken was, for me, utterly thrilling.
H.P.Lovecraft was an American horror writer (1890 – 1937) directly responsible for the conception of a body of work that was to form the Cthulhu Mythos – describing the machinations of a pantheon of Outer Gods and minions, sometimes mindless, otherwise sentient, cunning and malevolent beyond human experience.
I was 14 when I first discovered H.P.Lovecraft’s work and it literally warped my mind. I’ve been a devotee ever since. Both in fiction and in role-playing games (tabletop, not computer games).
In 1924, Lovecraft moved to Brooklyn Heights (Clinton Street) as a swift and unsatisfying marriage came apart. Born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, much of Lovecraft’s life was coloured by mental, emotional and physical ailments. He certainly suffered some degree or form of xenophobia. Combined with a sort of anxious exhaustion which may have culminated in several nervous breakdowns during his time spent in Clinton Street, one product of his stay there was a story called The Horror at Red Hook.
Living in a first-floor apartment on the North West corner, it seems Lovecraft detested the crumbling, decaying aspect of the area, plus other aspects of the neighbourhood, causing him to write in one letter…
Something unwholesome — something furtive — something vast lying subterrenely [sic] in obnoxious slumber — that was the soul of 169 Clinton St. at the edge of Red Hook, and in my great northwest corner room “The Horror at Red Hook” was written
.
The story probably owes a lot to Lovecraft’s subjective views of the people who occupied the neighbourhood; ironic considering the rather gentrified state of Brooklyn Heights today.
Being there then, I was at first a little disappointed to see that this singular part of the terraced building had been subjected to fairly recent renovation. It lacked the veneer of the era. The area too, is all rather mundane. But, to stand at the doorway and consider the echoes of the man who once stood exactly where I was… that was something special. A faint, fragmentary connection to a man who regardless of his short-comings as a human being, has been an incredible influence on the shape and course of my life.
Dante’s Fool: demons, hackers and Outer Gods. What differentiates the Cthulhu Mythos from the Occult?
View on official website
In the sci-fi & dark fantasy novel, Dante’s Fool, the lead character Detective Sergeant Louis Cloud is forced to confront the gruesome truth lurking beneath the veneer of modern civilisation: that demons exist and can be responsible for monstrous acts of brutality, violence and cruelty. This truth becomes the heart of a murder investigation that is impossible for him to tie-off, and ultimately derails his life, plunging him headlong into dark, unchartered waters; there to drift out to the boundaries of human experience.
Beneath the surface of the story, behind the scenes of occult horror, there is a greater and more terrifying force at work; the machinations of the Cthulhu Mythos. Originally brought to public awareness in the 1920s by the American writer H.P.Lovecraft, the Mythos has been ever-present in human reality, albeit usually indirectly, through dreams and the corrupting influence of the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, and probably best documented in all its chaotic madness by the enlightened (or insane) author of the dread Necronomicon, Abdul Alhazred.
But what differentiates the Mythos from the Occult?
This was a question I faced about 15 years ago when I first began developing an RPG system that ultimately became Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur(published 2007). To me, the concept was similar to the issue of classical physics and quantum mechanics. Most of us can live in a world with the rules of Classic Physics (the Occult, where Angelic law and elemental Magick have defined rules and structure) but when you start to delve into the surreal Quantum realm – (the Mythos) the rules twist, buckle, bend and tear apart into utter chaos.
For me, the solution was to introduce a barrier to the Mythos. After all, much of the written work about the Mythos to date talks about things that come “from Beyond”, and lurking “on the Threshold”, and how certain words and symbols can bring forth monstrous things “into our world”. There is always a suggestion that they are “out there” looking in. I thought: why can’t they just sweep down from those cosmic gulfs and consume all this flesh and energy? What’s stopping them?
So I came up with the Quantisphere. It’s not an original idea. But it’s my name and definition for the boundary that keeps the Mythos at bay.
.
When I say Mythos I’m referring specifically to those trans-dimensional entities classified as Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, and not the more mortal, physical creatures defined as non-human species or independent races – who are commonly familiar with the Mythos (unlike human counterparts) and either worship them or serve them directly.
The existence of the Quantisphere ties into the Elder Gods, those ethereal, scarcely mentioned beings that for reasons unknown, created this bubble of form, structure and order; a bubble that doesn’t just contain our Universe but every Universe that has ever existed or will exist in the future**.
**The notion of Time itself being an illusion (or delusion) woven into the fabric of some minds created within the Quantisphere.
The Quantisphere is an invisible membrane. It doesn’t form an actual bubble, there is no tangible boundary you can travel out to, to touch and probe and attempt to penetrate, rather, the Quantisphere is right before your eyes. Pinch your thumb and forefinger together and the Quantisphere exists “in the space in between”.
The Quantisphere is an energy. It taps into what scientists today describe as Dark Matter but is significantly more than that.
The Quantisphere has layers, within which are wrapped the sentient and semi-sentient forms we call Angels and their “fallen” cousins – Demons. They are a part of “our world” and yet removed from it; pure energy, without physical form and yet holding thoughts, passions and desires; they are with Mind. They are aware of the Mythos but are powerless against it.
The kind of magick, ceremony and conjuration required to bring Demons into human presence is vastly different to the kind employed in Mythos Magick.
Demonic entities can be ruthlessly intelligent or blunt forces, obsessed with gratification of their primal urges.
.
In Dante’s Fool, both extremes of this range come into the story; some are attracted by the blood sacrifice and terror surrounding a set of arcane symbols; another is the bound servant of a sect that is purely Mythos in nature and outlook, a sect that controls the Board of a powerful and enigmatic technology corporation. In this latter case, it is an example of a dominant power utilising the Quantispheric forces to service its needs within the Quantisphere. The Mythos at the helm.
Without giving too much away about the novel, it also dials into the fabric of Mind and the existence of Intelligence without physical form – and how such an existence can shift between the planes of mundane human reality and the upper reaches of the Quantisphere – and even shift into the fabricated virtual realities that humans create through computers… because of the mercurial nature of electromagnetic energy. What is thought but energy? What is Will but the direction of energy towards a chosen purpose?
I wrote Dante’s Fool between 1997 and 1999 but didn’t nail the final draft until 2004. I was heavily influenced by James Ellroy’s detective fiction, in regards to the way DS Cloud manages the investigations he’s involved in, and also from Dennis Wheatley’s fantastic range of horror novels that tackles the subject of demonology. “The Devil Rides Out” by Wheatley, is one of my all-time favourite novels.
If you’re interested in novels that deal with the Cthulhu Mythos and it’s influence of our reality, then you may also like the action-packed thriller God Seed (where Nyarlathotep is aiming to deliver a master blow against humanity), or the corporate espionage orientated novel EDGE (where a new Great Old One is oozing back into our reality at the location of a snowboard resort), or the post-apocalyptic political crime thriller, Dog Eat Dog (which introduces another Great Old One and servitor race into the Mythos).
DANTE’s FOOL is available in paperback, Kindle or iBook
WiP: inserting the great “missing piece” from current YD rulebook – the Influence of Hastur on this post-apocalyptic world.
The oily waters of Carcosa seep into Venice at night. Photo: David J Rodger
The overhaul of Yellow Dawn (2.1) continues. It’s been going on since March, 7 months later and I’m only just starting to see a glimmer of an end in sight. Definitely one of the toughest creative projects I’ve ever tasked myself with. Should be worth it though: a lot of new narrative flavour is getting packed into the next version of the rulebook. Launch date now looks like Summer 2012.
Couple of days ago I started working through Dead City runs and Scavenging, streamlining the existing rules to give GM’s more opportunity to throw in their own narrative spin rather than everything being determined by reference tables and dice.
Today I’m getting into the meat of the Dead City / Scavenging chapter; now looking to finally insert the great “missing piece” from the current Yellow Dawn rulebook (2.1) which is how the Influence of Hastur manifests in this post-apocalyptic world. At the moment there’s a lot of narrative descriptions, great for some GMs but I also want to create a brief structure to give more methodic GMs a chance to just run the system with a few dice and see where it takes them (and the horrified characters). So that’s today’s mission.
Looks like Dog Eat Dog is getting some exposure somewhere as sales have spiked in the past few days. No idea where or who as LULU and Kindle don’t give me any info about who buys my work. Never mind. It’s all good! *beams a smile* Dog Eat Dog is the SF & DF novel based on the world of Yellow Dawn.
The Ninth Gate: occult and tarot-like symbolism in the engravings by Aristide Torchia and Lucifer
Title page of The Nine Doors To the Kingdom of Shadows
The Ninth Gate is probably one of my favourite movies of all time, as is the official soundtrack. A film by Roman Polanski, its stars Johnny Depp as the ambivalent protagonist, Lucas Corso; and features an incredible performance by Frank Langella as the brazen, smug and sinister collector of all things diabolical – Boris Balkan – a wealthy man where money and morals are no obstacle to acquiring books that deal with the Devil.
.
The film is an adaptation of The Dumas Club, a book written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
.
I’m a huge fan of H.P.Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos cycle of stories which provide unnerving glimpses of a pantheon of Outer Gods and their minions, writhing obscenely within alien vortices of inarticulate sounds and invisible light, sometimes only just beyond the perceptions of ordinary folk. The cosmic horror of the Mythos has nothing to do with this movie which limits itself to the spiritual, psychological and metaphysical menace of Evil, and all its many incarnations within the Quantisphere (the realm of Man, Spirits, Elementals and Angels & Demons).
.
However, the central theme of the story is an investigation into an enigmatic and much-coveted book of ancient and some would say ‘forbidden’ lore. And this dials directly into a key theme of Lovecraft, where terrible secrets and sanity-shredding knowledge ‘from beyond’ are woven into the insane ramblings of madmen and devoted cultists.
.
Some books should never be opened. .
Nor should such secrets be pursued.
Here, the book in question is the “De Umbrarum Regis Novum Portis”, translated as “The Nine Doors To the Kingdom of Shadows” or the “Nine Gates” for short. The Nine Gates was written by Aristide Torchia whilst in Venice, in 1666, reputedly whilst in possession of the Delomelanicon – an apocryphal book allegedly written by Lucifer itself. Torchia’s book contains nine woodcut engravings that purported to be copies of those made by Lucifer in of the Delomelanicon. More, it is said that the Nine Gates contains within it the secret to raise the Devil.
SPOILER ALERT: This article will ruin the film if you have not seen it. If this is the case then I can’t recommend strongly enough that you pause here and take the time to watch The Ninth Gate and savour this detective thriller and the esoteric puzzles contained within.
Boris Balkan stands before an image of the Ninth Gate: a 13th century Cathar castle
.
“They form a kind of satanic riddle. Correctly interpreted with the aid of the original text and sufficient inside information, they are reputed to conjure up the Prince of Darkness in person. - Boris Balkan: speaking of the engravings in the Nine Gates
.
Only three copies of the Nine Gates are said to have survived after Torchia was burned along with his work in 1667.
Just as the film begins, Andrew Telfer, the owner of one of the three copies, commits suicide by hanging himself.
Andrew Telfer about to hang himself
Boris Balkan acquires this copy and so events unfold that lead Corso, a specialist in rare books, to travel to France and Portugal to examine the only two other copies in existence. One is owned by Baroness Kessler and the other resides in the Fargas collection.
Balkan believes that something is ‘not right’ about his copy.
“What’s wrong,” Corso jibes, “the Devil won’t show up?”
Balkan wants Corso to examine and acquire the other copies, “at all costs.”
“At all costs sounds illegal,” Corso states warily.
“It’s not the first time you’ve done something illegal, Mr Corso.”
“Not that illegal.”
“Hence the size of the cheque.”
Corso, is at heart, a mercenary; his morals are dictated by his percentage and Balkan knows there is nothing more reliable than a man whose loyalty can be bought for cold hard cash.
This statement may be true at the time, but later the truth or untruth of it defines the very core of the riddle. For Corso, something beyond the materialism of money becomes far more important.
The riddle
The Nine Doors To the Kingdom of Shadows contains nine engravings. In each of the three surviving copies of the Nine Gates, there are three variations in these engravings: six are signed AT, referring to the Nine Gates author Aristidem Torchia; but three, different in each surviving copy of the book, are signed LCF.
Lucifer.
The nine original engravings by Lucifer have been dispersed amongst three separate books; only somebody who is able to study and compare all three books would be able to ascertain this.
Corso.
Working for Balkan.
The nine engravings are the nine doors, the nine gates, and define the route into or out of the Kingdom of Shadows: the ultimate purpose of the book(s).
The assertion that the Nine Gates can raise up the Prince of Darkness in person is incorrect; one of the many traps embedded within the journey the book entails. Important Note: one of the engravings signed LCF is actually a forgery, created by the Ceniza brothers who reside in their strange shop, in Toledo, Spain, and this throws our antagonist and protagonist into a fatal spin; however, this very deception is portrayed in the engravings themselves and is a part of the game.
Interpretations
This is a story of duality. There are two journey’s occurring here. One is Boris Balkan: fervently materialistic, hungry for acquisition and determined to go after what he wants. The second journey is that of Corso; through the narrative of the story he becomes a seeker of knowledge without any clear vision of what the outcome will be. Both men are travelling in opposite directions. One is heading towards ultimate destruction, dragged down into the fires of Hell, to become lost within the Kingdom of Shadows; the other is heading towards Enlightenment, to claim a prize he never knew existed until the moment of final revelation. Neither man is innocent, but one has failed to “play by the rules” and so suffers the integral trap contained within the riddle of the book and the engravings.
.
This is a good point to discuss the female companion that takes Corso’s side without any real explanation. There are allusions to the idea she may be Lucifer or certainly an agent of Lucifer. Does such a potent figure “play by the rules?” It depends on whether you see Lucifer as force of good, evil or merely powerful and ambivalent. Look at the Catholics and the Cathars; both deeply entrenched in the view that the other is evil whilst they are good.
Differentiating between Good and Evil is never as clear as black and white.
What is certain is that the act of investigating the books, perhaps their penultimate function within the earthly plane, so to speak, has caused her to appear.
As if summoned. And a game has begun.
One aspect of Lucifer is as a trickster and a figure that excels in riddles and mind games.
Boris Balkan, he is a known disciple of the Devil.
Corso, he’s something of an enigma regarding morality and motivation; even to himself as the story causes him to evolve. In his character he defines the very essence of duality.
Duality, and the subjective nature of what is good and what is evil is at the heart of this story.
So perhaps the woman – or whatever she is – has arrived to preside over the playing of the game, the execution of the solving of the riddle.
Corso’s mysterious female companion
The First Gate
“Silence is Golden”
A knight rides through a fortified town. With his finger on his lips he counsels prudence or silence.
AT: The castle has four towers. LCF: The castle has three towers.
Another translation of the latin text is: “Only one who has battled according to the rules will prevail”.
The castle in the image is the final destination and this has significant in regards to the final outcome, or the Ninth Gate.
Number 4 is the physical domain; there are four phases of the moon; four cavities in the human heart; four limbs; four points of the compass and of the cross used to crucify Christ; four known physical forces, nuclear, radiation, gravity and electromagnetism; and in some cultures it is considered an unlucky and tricky number.
Number 3 is the realm of the spirit and perfection; the Holy Trinity; Mind, Body and Soul; Birth, Life and Death; Conscious, Subconscious and Physical Form. But most significant is this: the number three may represent new and challenging adventures with an assurance of cooperation from others whom you may require help. Consider the exploits Corso becomes involved in and the mysterious woman who joins his side. Typically, the number three symbolizes reward and success in most undertakings.
So right from the very outset, the First Gate describes the final outcome will be either material or spiritual – will bring good fortune or bad luck – depending one which path is taken. Duality again.
The Second Gate
“Open that which is closed”
A hermit before a closed door. A lantern on the ground and two keys in his hand. Next to him, a sign that resembles the Hebrew letter Teth.
AT: The hermit has the keys in his right hand. LCF: The hermit has the keys in his left hand.
Two keys refers to salvation or damnation. They are also highly prized in occult circles. King Solomon’s Temple has two doors and also two doors to its oracle. Two keys are required for the outer doors, a gold key for the right door and a silver key for the left door. Right hand. Left hand. The same keys are used on the inner doors but they are turned from left to right instead of from right to left. This defines duality of the nature of these objects; right can be left; light can be dark.
Whichever hand is used will determine how the door is opened and what route is unlocked to the seeker of (material power) or (enlightenment and knowledge).
Fargas, the old man in Portugal, had lost almost everything but still kept two crystal glasses.
The Third Gate
“Wasted breath keeps a secret”
A traveller heads towards a bridge which spans a river. At each end a fortified door bars access. On a cloud, a bowman aims in the direction of the road leading to the bridge.
AT: The bowman has one arrow, loaded and ready, pointing down. LCF: The bowman has a second arrow, this one in the quiver, pointing up.
Another transliteration of the latin title is “a missing word keeps a secret”. The bowman represents the danger from God or the Devil (duality) regarding the person who dares to seek to penetrate the boundaries of this powerful domain; who dares to grasp the hidden meanings to unlock the gates of secrecy.
The image can be a stark warning to those who contemplate proceeding. The river represents a boundary and transcendence; it is strength and calamity. And so the bowman also represents Eros or Cupid, who has gone through many reinterpretations, shooting his golden arrow to inspire love (positive benefit of the alluded transformation); but with two arrows, as depicted by LCF, there is also the risk of hatred.
Finally, the bowman holds more than a striking resemblance to the Ceniza brothers. It is they who have removed one of the Lucifer engravings (from the Telfer / Taillefer copy, now in possession of Balkan / Corso) and replaced it with a forgery. They represent the “missing word” that perpetuates the secret; the missing engraving, which they actually have concealed in their shop. As Corso leaves their shop in Toledo so danger descends upon him from above (the collapsing scaffolding) signifying that he did not acquire the missing engraving.
The Fourth Gate
“Chance is not the same for all”
A jester before a stone maze. The entrance is closed by a door. Three dice on the ground each reveal their faces showing the numbers 1, 2 and 3.
AT: The exit to the maze is bricked up. LCF: The exit to the maze is open.
A maze, and a dungeon-like one built of stone, has potent symbolism. In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth of Crete was so well designed that it was impossible for a person to find their way out again; leaving them as prey for the Minotaur. The Minotaur is representative of the beast ‘in us’ that roams the labyrinth of the subconscious mind. The warning here is: delve into the darker side of your self and you may never find a way back out. And in Aristide Torchia’s version of the engraving there is no way out.
The controversial French philosopher, Michel Foucault called the Minotaur the very near and yet also the absolutely alien – the emblem of the unity of the human and inhuman. The duality of the good nature and the bad. The story of the Ninth Gate is suggestive of a maze, where the protagonist Corso reaches clear junctions of choice, to retreat or go forward, to deceive or to be honest, to kill or let live. All the while, Corso is being drawn deep and deeper into the mystery. What is it that will lead him out the other side? Lucifer’s exit is open. Will Lucifer (the mysterious woman accomplice) be the guide here?
Gambling with three dice was very popular in Greece. On each of the dice, the visible faces add up to 6. Three number 6. Sign of the Devil. The total of the three dice is 18, which is the true number of engravings (9 by AT and 9 by LCF).
The presence of the dice ties into the card’s title, that chance is not the same for all. Chance will generate different outcomes: entrapment within the maze to become a victim of ‘the beast’ or escape with experience from the journey through.
The Fifth Gate
“In vain”
A merchant counts his gold. Behind him, Death holds an hourglass in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.
AT: The sands in the hourglass have just begun to flow. LCF: The sands in the hourglass have stopped flowing.
The merchant is sitting within a castle-like chamber, possibly hinting at the location of the final, Ninth Gate. The floor is a checkerboard, black and white together, repeating the theme of duality.
The hourglass and the pitchfork in either hand are significant. The pitchfork is three-pronged; a trident, which here is most likely a symbol for the Devil; although it is also a weapon against evil (Hinduism) with powers against demons.
In Lucifer’s engraving, the conclusion has been reached; the merchant has acquired much material wealth with no real reward at all. He has not seen that only time stands between him and the Devil. In Aristide Torchia’s version, there is still time to resolve the situation; to dispense with material delusions of wealth and to take the appropriate action (perhaps taking the trident to defend himself).
The Sixth Gate
“I enrich myself with death”
A hanged man, similar to that of the Tarot, his hands behind his back, hung by one foot from the crenellation of the castle wall next to a closed tower gate. A hand clad in a gauntlet brandishes a burning sword from a loophole.
AT: The man hangs from his right foot. LCF: The man hangs from his left foot.
Despite hanging upside down the man’s hair and clothes do not; he has a calm demeanour. This position is desired.
A key meaning of the hanged man is that through personal sacrifice, even death, comes new understanding.
The Norse god Odin hung upside down from the world-tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days in order to attain wisdom. By passing through these nine days of challenge, or nine gates, Odin acquired the runes from the Well of Wyrd, the source and end of all sacred knowledge.
He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed […] a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24).
The significance of the right and left leg is based on the motivation and nature of the sacrifice being undertaken. Torchia’s engraving, showing the man hanging from the right leg would suggest a materialistic sacrifice; but the inverted meaning can indicate the opposite is true; just as with the gold and silver keys for the Temple of Solomon, right becomes left and left becomes right. Duality.
The alternative engraving demonstrates a spiritual sacrifice; a surrender of oneself to acquire sacred knowledge.
The Seventh Gate
“The disciple outshines the master”
A king and a beggar play chess on a board with white squares. The moon can be seen through the window. Beneath this and next to a closed door, two dogs are fighting.
AT: The squares of the chess board are black. LCF: The squares of the chess board are white.
The crescent moon symbolises new beginnings and the turning of dreams into reality. Question: is not reality a dream and to escape the dream is to ascend / descend into reality?
The two dogs fighting represent the fears of the mind at the approach of great transformation. Black and white. Opposites fighting over a single purpose. Duality. The difference between the black chess board and the white chess board is merely to reinforce this point.
The white and black chess board also hints at either an ascent from the Kingdom of Shadows or a decent into it.
Finally, with both King and peasant playing on a uniform board, it suggests that the game is in fact level, heading towards a draw. The King cannot beat the peasant. They are both equal. Having come this far the peasant is now equal to God or the Devil. Will he have the courage to get past the fighting dogs (his own fears) and head out through the door, which is closed but not locked, into the engendering light of the new moon?
The Eighth Gate
“Virtue is conquered”
Before the fortified walls of a castle, a figure kneels in prayer whilst behind him stands a warrior with a mace ready to strike. In the background is a Wheel of Fortune.
AT: The warrior does not have a halo around his head. LCF: The warrior has a halo around his head.
The virtuous man prays to overcome the challenges he faces, but fate may still strike him down – a killing blow from the warrior behind him pending on the turn of the Wheel of Fortune. Virtue will not stop the praying man from being killed. Virtue is defeated.
The warrior and the man in prayer represent the dual roles of the protagonist and antagonist, Corso and Balkan. One is aggressive, acquisitive, determine to do whatever to achieve his goal; the other is passive and seeking guidance to gain an understanding of his goal.
Yet the engraving by Lucifer shows the warrior with a halo around his head, symbolising that the Warrior may also be virtuous but his high moral standards do not stop him killing.
The notion and potential of virtue being conquered is seen to rotate through both figures. Duality.
The Ninth Gate
“I know now that the shadows come from the light”
A seven-headed dragon is being ridden by a naked woman; she sits incanting from an open book on her lap whilst gesturing towards the castle in the background.
AT: The castle is in flames LCF: A starburst of intense light radiates from behind the castle **
The castle depicted in the engraving is a visually literal representation of the Ninth Gate’s physical location. No doubt a location that has been sought for millennia and finally found (within this group of Satanists) by Boris Balkan.
.
**In Balkan’s copy of the Nine Gates, which he acquired from Andrew Telfer, who in turn bought it from the Ceniza twins, this particular engraving is a forgery made to look like the others – in other words, the castle is in flames.
This leads Balkan to make the fatal error of mistaking fire to be part of the ritual of the Ninth Gate, and so leads to his rather grisly ending and possibly his descent into the Kingdom of Shadows. Into Hell.
Boris Balkan believes that fire is a part of the ceremony that unlocks the Ninth Gate
The woman riding the dragon could allude to the Whore of Babylon, but her facial appearance certainly resembles Corso’s female companion. The angel / demon or Lucifer itself – summoned as overseer when Balkan and Corso started this journey.
The Whore of Babylon?
The theme of duality continues, with Corso enacting the imagery of the Torchia engraving; being “ridden” by the Whore of Babylon whilst the castle burns in order to then receive the wisdom of where the real (and final LCF) engraving is held… thus allowing him to enact that version… walking through the gate into the Light as indicated by the Whore. The world behind him is cast into shadows. He is emerging from the Kingdom of Shadows.
Lucas Corso approaches the true Ninth Gate
Brought together, maybe it means nothing at all
Boris Balkan takes a bunch of Lucifer engravings torn from the pages of the three copies of the Nine Gates, goes to the physical location prescribed through other research, and then what?
On the simplest level all Balkan had to do was discover the three separate copies of the book contained variations in the engravings; then acquire the 9 LCF engravings and take them to the Ninth Gate. The physical possession of these engravings coinciding with the physical location activates the final outcome.
To add a little more complexity, it could be that Balkan had to not only have possession of the 9 LCF engravings, but was required to place them in a particular order to create a sense of meaning, understanding and comprehension as part of the solution to the riddle. This seems to be the interpretation taken by Balkan as he places the engravings on the table before him:
To travel in silence…
[ Engraving # 1 ]
…by a long and circuitous route,
[ Engraving # 4 ]
to brave the arrows of misfortune,
[ Engraving # 3 ]
to fear neither noose nor fire,
[ Engraving # 6 ]
to play the greatest of all games…
[ Engraving # 7 ]
…and win, foregoing no expense…
[ Engraving # 5 ]
is to walk the vicissitudes of fate…
[ Engraving # 8 ]
…and gain at last the key…
[ Engraving # 2 ]
…that will unlock the ninth gate.
[ Engraving # 9 ]
Balkan assembles the woodcut engravings to solve the riddle
NOTE: In this movie clip, Balkan has a mixture of AT and LCF engravings on the table. Not sure if that’s an intentional decision or a goof on the part of the film-maker.
However, neither of these options pays much attention to the symbolism-soaked content of the engravings. It is unlikely that somebody of Balkan’s narrow but intensely focussed interest, and broad intellect, would dismiss them unless they actually were not vital to achieving them outcome. Perhaps merely noting the symbolism – and the duality between AT and LCF is enough, but having possession of the engravings is vital.
Additional complexity can be added by stating the protagonist is required to enact all of the scenes portrayed within the engravings. It’s certainly not included in the film, and although a feasible and interesting concept beyond the constraints of a tight script, I don’t think this is suitable for the game that is afoot. It places far too much literal interpretation of the engravings. And this story is more about the spiritual and psychology interpretation.
More likely, symbolism, and symbolic performance, such as those used in ceremony, equates to direct action and subsequent manifestation of… the outcome.
What does passing through the Ninth Gate mean?
On a metaphysical level, Corso walked out of this world into another.
On a spiritual / symbolic level, Corso walked through the gate and experienced some form of enlightenment.
Does Corso have the courage to transcend from the Kingdom of Shadows into the light of Truth?
Further interpretations
In certain rituals thought can take on form, and so it is possible to shape reality as if it were itself a work of fiction; something that can be ‘edited’ by those who know how. Early in the film Corso purchases a copy of Don Quixote. The hard-boiled bargain highlights his cavalier and mercenary character – tantamount to theft – but it’s also a big clue to the mercurial nature of [our] subjective reality: what you see does not necessarily match what is actually there. Symbolism taking form and acting out in physical reality. The duality of matter and spirit.
Recall Liana Telfer’s loyal thug and bodyguard, black skinned but with platinum white hair.
Liana Telfer
Another frame of reference from which to view The Ninth Gate within, is as a window, looking into the story of Catharism and the fight against the tyranny of materialism. It is the journey of one man, Corso, who manages however unwittingly to escape the Kingdom of Shadows. Boris Balkan locates the Ninth Gate as the 13th century castle, once owned by the Congost family who practised Cartharism and were attacked as heretics by Catholic forces. Each of the nine engravings represents a particular life experience, generic or specific, that one must go through in order to gain access to the world of Light and Illumination. Acquiring the engravings was merely a part of that journey; defining the map, so to speak. The female companion was a guide. It looks at our world from the point of view that we are in fact living in falseness, fooled and subjugated into thinking this is the true reality by Rex Mundi, the Devil, the Prince of Darkness. There is an alternative world, a mirror of our own but where Truth prevails.
Final reflections
If you view the film as a revelation about the truth of our objective reality: that we are all living isolated from the divine light, cut-off, trapped with the realm of flesh and materialism, then consider the following:
Lucifer is also known as the Light Bringer.
The Ninth Gate is titled: I know now that the shadows come from the light. We come from the light. We are now shadows.
The Catholic Church all but wiped out pagan religions, starving the old gods of the energy they used to derive from worship, leaving them weakened; in its place they empowered the barbarian god, Yahweh/ Jehovah.
The Whore of Babylon rises when Lucifer walks the Earth. Perhaps Lucifer and the Whore of Babylon are both represented by the strange female companion? A state of duality. Or perhaps the term Lucifer refers not to an entity but to an event, when a person (Corso) is on track to transcend from the Kingdom of Shadows into the Light?
Location of the 9th Gate
The location of the castle used in the film is Château de Puivert in the Quercob region of France. I didn’t discover this until recently which is frustrating because I spent a lot of time in the South of France during 2005 and 2006 whilst working up notes for the novel, Dog Eat Dog. I realise now that I was tantalizingly close to it. Oh well, an excuse to return there perhaps?
Google map showing location of Chateau de Puivert
The woodcut engravings used in the film
The engravings have a tarot-like quality to them, littered with cabalistic references and symbolism, generating much interest beyond the film.
Here are some high quality images of the engravings, a mixture of Aristide Torchia and those he copied from the Delomelanicon – created by Lucifer itself.
Silence Is Golden
Open that which is closed
Wasted breath keeps a secret
Chance is not the same for all
In vain
I enrich myself with death
The disciple outshines the master
Virtue is conquered
I know now that the shadows come from the light
The Official Soundtrack to The Ninth Gate
The soundtrack to this film is by Wojciech Kilar, who also did the OST for Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. It’s a seminal piece of work. The first time I ever listened to it I sat down and wrote an 8,000 word short story straight off the bat in one night, without even stopping for a break. That was Devil’s Spring – a Cthulhu Mythos story with a distinctly aquatic theme.
A Mythos version?
I see some parallels between the Delomelanicon and the accursed Necronomicon, or any other shunned and much guarded book of the secrets of the Outer Chaos. Perhaps Aristide Torchia will gain the same status in Occult circles, as the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred in Mythos spheres. It would be great to see a scenario utilising the plot model of The Ninth Gate to send characters scurrying into forbidden areas, plunging into the depths of Mythos symbolism, with the ultimate outcome being some cataclysmic event of cosmic horror or some kind of jaded salvation. An interesting observation is seeing the Delomelanicon, a fictional book within a fictional book (Nine Gates) becoming a meme – the influence of Hastur – much like the Necronomicon, whereby it starts to transcend fiction to become a reality through the activity of more and more people (talking about it as if real, crafting their own physical copy, etc).
A copy of The Nine Doors To the Kingdom of Shadows – De Umbrarum Regis Novum Portis
DANTE’S FOOL: Detective Sergeant Louis Cloud is a hard-boiled cop hungry for power and promotion, and he’ll do anything to get it. When a courier descends from orbit and is murdered by an armed gang who rob him of precious gemstones, DS Cloud sets eagerly upon their trail, but he quickly learns there are other forces out there – and things from other realms of reality – that will also stop at nothing to get what they want. DS Cloud’s life is literally torn apart as he plunges headlong towards a terrifying confrontation with one of the sub-princes of Hell. Thrown into this violent mix of corporate corruption and demonism is Natalya Dorganskya; previously the adorable daughter of a now deceased movie-megastar, she has turned to crime to give her the kicks she once got from a borrowed fame and fortune. Once a world-class pilot, her neural network ravaged by custom drugs, can she overcome the torments of her past to defeat the horrors of her immediate future? Non-human things that have come stalking through time and space to take back what she and her compatriots stole from the courier. David J Rodger delivers a dark and edgy vision of the near-future in a novel that reveals the boundaries between the Satanism and the Cthulhu Mythos.
Take a peek at my collection of novels - available in paperback, Amazon Kindle and iBook formats. God Seed contains an avatar of Nyarlathotep; EDGE contains a new Great Old One; as does Dog Eat Dog – set in the post-apocalyptic world of “Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur”.
Horror on the Orient Express in a post-apocalyptic setting? Call of Cthulhu to Yellow Dawn conversion, a case study.
This is a quick article about role-playing games, and the challenge faced when converting one scenario genre into another, whilst leaving the essential plot intact.
Horror on the Orient Express is a unique and fantastic product, published by Chaosium Inc for 1920′s Call of Cthulhu.
For the uninitiated, Call of Cthulhu is a role-playing game based on the cosmic horror fiction of the sublime and gifted American author, H.P. Lovecraft; where players take on the role of characters in a 1920′s universe dogged by crackpot spiritualists, insane cultists and mad scientists bringing steampunk inventions into existence to break down the barriers between us, and the Outer Chaos.
I bought Horror on the Orient Express back in 1992 and played it once in its pure 1920′s flavour, and then several times with a home-grown RPG system, blending Cyberpunk and Cthulhu Mythos genres; a system based on the shared fictional universe of my sci-fi and dark fantasy novels, and something that ultimately evolved into the post-apocalyptic world of Yellow Dawn.
A major campaign for 1920's Call of Cthulhu
Yellow Dawn’s full nomenclature is “Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur”. It’s currently on version 2.1 and is going through a massive re-write because as critics have pointed out, for a game with Hastur referenced in the title, there’s very little of the Tattered King within the rulebook. My fault for trying to be too clever about how subtle the influence of Hastur is within the world of Yellow Dawn. This monstrous Great Old One hasn’t gained a solid footing in our world; it is not roaming around the planet corrupting the state of reality and infecting information and structures with a maddening form of entropy, but, particles of the thing have been transcripted into a pathogen that was released by deluded and insane worshippers of Hastur (see the campaign book, Shadows of the Quantinex to discover how and why).
This pathogen left more than 70% of the human population dead and another segment Infected by a compound that turned millions of victims into what the orbital-based media, and other survivors, call Zombies. In the wake of such a catastrophe, most of the landmass reverts to wilderness peppered with small, impoverished settlements, a few high-tech survivor compounds, and a handful of massive, fully functioning Living Cities.
Consider then, my desire to run the Horror on the Orient Express campaign in this shattered world? A luxury train travelling between cities that are now dead and overrun by creatures mistakenly called “zombies”, through abandoned terrains where weathering and the riot of Mother Nature left unchecked has wrecked buildings and transport infrastructure.
Not really possible, right?
I got my thinking cap on and came up with the following concept.
Available in paperback, iBook or Amazon Kindle
The current player group has a bunch of characters who have been through a major campaign where they thwarted attempts by the Outer God, Nyarlathotep to resurrect one of its human avatars. This was a direct sequel to the conclusion of the swift and action-packed novel, God Seed.
However, prior to being beaten Nyarlathotep was able to force several of these characters to “bow-down before me and submit yourselves to my authority”. As a consequence, the Outer God was able to work its terrible mischief into their minds over the next few weeks, and influence their actions to the point where they opened a portal within their settlement one night. This could have spelled disaster for everyone there; as a furious storm rolled in from the hills and blasted the settlement with shrieking winds, explosive flashes of lightning and booming thunder, everyone went into a panic.
And then an abrupt fading out of vision and sound to a white hissing emptiness, before rematerialising in the plush office of a solicitor, in London, in a version of Earth as it would have been if Yellow Dawn had not occurred.
I transferred the character group to an alternate version of reality. Still real. Still valid. They looked out of the window of that office and saw hope in the shadow of great terror. Why had they been brought here.
This was when I inserted the “hook and introduction” to the Horror on the Orient Express campaign.
I’ve also made minor changes to the storyline that I felt improved things, and to preclude players digging for clues on the internet.
The solicitor sent them on their way, across Europe, on the Orient Express, stopping off to collect pieces of a statue: Michelangelo’s Carthusian Man.
New version coming Winter 2011
The opportunity for roleplaying was fantastic. The characters are now in a world that they’ve not seen since it was destroyed (in their subjective reality) ten years earlier. Now they’re in London, and Paris, with fabulous restaurants, the chance to drink real Coca Cola with ice, or munch through a MacDonald’s burger. Simple, almost trivial things, but which take on great significance when the characters haven’t been able to enjoy them since their world became post-apocalyptic.
They were also to locate loved ones who perished when Yellow Dawn happened; but this desire for contact was checked by the fact that they too, an alternate version of themselves, was alive and well and living with (formerly) dead wives and girlfriends and children. And none of these people know anything about the horrors of Yellow Dawn.
Speaking of which.
Just as the characters settled into the comfort of this alternate reality, I plunged them back, without warning into the Yellow Dawn universe – their true reality. They were riding a taxi through crowded London traffic, heading down into an underpass, when suddenly everything became dark and quiet and they realised all the traffic around them had stopped, and even the driver looked a little strange slumped over in his cab, as if asleep. At first the characters assumed their location had been compromised by hackers (as they were transporting valuable gold), but then with a rapidly dawning horror – visible on the players faces and giving me, as GM, a tickle of fiendish delight – they understood what had happened. Unarmed and dressed in nice executive clothing, they found themselves in a post-apocalyptic version of London, on the fringes of a protected boundary but very much in the depths of a Dead Zone. I bought them back, of course, after they’d had the chance to encounter a zombie without their normal precautions, and following a rubric that I’d rather not reveal here (so my players don’t get wise to it).
The look of relief on their faces was a picture; and so was the subsequent fear and paranoia about the if and when they might get plunged back into their Yellow Dawn universe.
So the campaign is set to continue for a few months of real-world play; with characters hunting for something across Europe in a non-Yellow Dawn, purely Cyberpunk Horror context with the perpetual risk of being plunged back into the horrors of the Yellow Dawn world at any moment.
It’s working beautifully.
A couple of points to note:
The few items of technology that came through with them, works, but is considered a decade out of date, and any stored information is garbled, scrambled and nonsensical. It means they can’t show pictures or files from the Yellow Dawn world to people in this alternate reality; and visa versa, unless they’re somehow able to make analogue copies of such information. Possible but bulky and tedious.
The prices of many items in the Yellow Dawn rulebook (2.1) are high due to their luxury status within a post-apocalyptic world. In the alternate reality, where such a catastrophe hasn’t occurred the price of these things is more in line with what you’d expect to pay. GM’s planning on using this concept should bear that in mind and adjust prices as they see fit when characters decide to buy things.
Edit (11th July 2011): I’ll be adding more detail to this as time goes by, and as the player group get deeper into the campaign; I’ll be explaining the nature of the statue, plus the powerful Mythos cult and the abilities of its followers.
.
Related Information:
The new version of Yellow Dawn (2.5) is due to be released this winter – 2011. You can follow progress of the overhaul here – click
Official web page for Yellow Dawn The Age of Hastur – click
Exploring influence of Hastur – King in Yellow – on post-apocalyptic world of Yellow Dawn through sci-fi & dark fantasy short stories – click
Gaining a clearer view of a Cthulhu Mythos apocalypse – click
Session notes for Horror on the Orient Express [HotOE] as it’s currently being played within Yellow Dawn universe – click
Horror on the Orient Express in a post-apocalyptic setting? Call of Cthulhu to Yellow Dawn conversion, a case study http://wp.me/pTAKk-1q4— David Rodger (@davidjrodger) July 03, 2011
